In mid-January, during his personal tour of 3/1 operational areas, Bud Eckert recalled Operation Cochise in some detail (I reproduce it below) and concluded with the following observation:

Operation Cochise was a perfect operation for Lima Company, so unlike any other operation we had participated in. No major casualties, beautiful countryside, without mines or booby traps, and a defeated enemy.

Corporal Santos Salinas—also of my First Platoon—was quoted in Otto Lehrack’s 2010 history of the many fights in the Que Son region, “The Road of 10, 000 Pains.” He said,

It makes all the humping worthwhile when you hit them like that.

Company Commander Gibbs remembered,

We had hand-to-hand combat and killed every one of them….We only had one walking wounded and no medevacs and no KIAs.

I called it “My birthday present” in the Stars and Stripes clipping, shown above, which I mailed to my parents. (Somehow, I thought, that would keep my mother from worrying about her only son. )

Portions of what Bud recalled in the brief account he shared during his January visit appeared in Lehrack’s book. (To his great credit, Lehrack went to great pains to get the perspectives of individual Marines in the long running battle against the Second NVA Division in the Que Son Basin.)  As to my memories, Bud’s account pretty much accords with them, though I think he left a few things out—the biggest being that Cochise was a followup to another operation in the region, Pike, which some regarded as pretty important, though in my memory of it—the sweeps through one village after another; one hilltop climbed after another; all through blazing heat— Operation Pike produced little but scary moments and exhaustion.  Other differences between us are relatively small, accounted for by different positions and different views in long lines and by the differing (and somewhat erratic) ways in which we all process and preserve memories of such things.

So following is Bud’s account of our success, such as it was in the larger scheme of things, that August. I will turn to my reflections on the operations of that month in my next round of rummagings. They are reflections that pretty much transcend the particulars of Pike, Cochise, or any of the operations we’d engaged in up to that point.

Operation Cochise-by Bud Eckert, 12 January 2015 [with my notes in italics every now and then]
A number of major battles took place in [the Que Son] area in 1967 between the 2nd North Vietnamese Army Division and elements of the First Marine Division.  As a result of these battles, the 2nd NVA was largely destroyed and was unable to fulfill its primary mission of cutting Vietnam in half during the Tet Offensive [still some five months or more away, in early 1968]. Over 900 Marines were killed in these battles. Various studies concluded that more than half of these Marines were killed as a result of malfunctioning M16s. [As Bud suggests, this is arguable, though there is no doubt malfunctioning M16s cost lives.]

When Lima Company returned to the 3/1 base in early August, we were excited to learn that we would be opconned (sent to reinforce) to the 5th Marines and that we would be involved in a major operation in the Que Son Valley.  We were overjoyed to be getting out of the 3/1’s normal area of operation, which was full of booby traps, ambushes, and an ever elusive [evasive] enemy. [Most of us were also acutely aware of the fact that Lima Company had sat out two of the most substantial engagements of the war, Operations Union I and Union II that spring, while we occupied the relatively placid defensive perimeter surrounding Danang.]

[After the short-lived Operation Pike. See the map on left for a very, very rough approximation— drawn from ancient memory—of the operational areas for Lima Company of Operations Pike and Cochise. I stand ready to be corrected in a heartbeat. ] After a few days of rest we were told to saddle up and head to the area where helicopters would pick us up—it was early morning when we flew into a small clearing. It was a hot landing zone and we were taking heavy fire—I was in the lead helicopter and the crew chief started yelling “out, out, out.” The helicopter was hovering about 12 feet above the ground. I was the fourth Marine to exit the ramp when i heard the crew chief yell “stop, stop, stop.” It was too late as my momentum carried me out of the aircraft-four of us felt pretty lonely for the next 10 minutes as gun ships flew overhead trying to suppress the enemy fire. [I’m reasonably sure that Bud’s squad was in the same CH-46 helicopter I was in, and, I was actually the first one out, jumping into a flooded rice paddy, submerged up to my armpits in mud. It was a scary few minutes, as I turned over and over in my mind how I would get us out if we were, as it seemed, being abandoned]  We were joined by the rest of the company a short while later and started a trek which seemed to last forever. (From left (west) to right (east) in the red ellipse on the map.] Up and down jungle-covered mountains, which were at the same time beautiful as well as foreboding.

At dusk we set up near the crest of a large mountain. A company from the 5th Marines occupied the other side of the crest. The next afternoon a fire started on the top of the hill due to incoming enemy fire. Someone yelled out to throw grenades to put the fire out. It was a pretty stupid idea as a number of men from the Fifth Marines ended up receiving small shrapnel wounds.

it was amazing what Marines were expected to carry. Besides our weapons, ammunition, grenades, water, flares, explosives , mortar and machine gun ammunition, it seemed there was always something else to carry. I remember once having to carry a 45 lb.  triangular shape charge [an explosive device—very finely designed and in no way improvised—to explode on command and direct shrapnel in a specific direction] for what seemed like miles….  A Native American Marine was carrying a green box with straps, which had to have weighed 60 pounds. Nobody knew what was inside this sealed metal box, but carry it we did. The Marine fell down the side of a hill and badly wrecked his knee. I ended up carrying the metal box for the next three days until a resupply helicopter inexplicably flew it out.

For days and days we continued our trek. On one particular day we were taking heavy fire. We had been out of water for hours and were really feeling the effects of dehydration. A Marine who no one recognized,someone said he was a  forward air controller, had been killed and four of us were carrying his large body up the side of a boulder strewn mountain, when machine gunner PFC Jack Atkins went down with heat exhaustion. I started dragging Atkins up the hill when i noticed an old rice paddy with a film of mud on top 40 meters to my right. I momentarily dropped Atkins and crawled under fire to the paddy and scraped mud into one of my canteens. When we finally reached the top of the craggy mountain I took a sock off and used it to strain the water from the mud. Each squad member got enough liquid to wet lips and tongue.

Napalm was exploding all around us. It sort of looked like the mother of all Fourth of July’s. Later that night, 2nd Platoon was tasked with collecting all canteens and humping a couple of clicks [kilometers] to a small stream. To this day i do not know who ended up with my dirt-encrusted canteen. [Good bits of this do not exist in my memory or exist in different order—though it is not really important any more. I do recall the climb up the boulder-strewn mountain, under fire. It fell to me to do a bit of my own hauling of a human being, this one living. Our interpreter, afraid to face the gunfire, refused to go up. Needing him, I just picked him up and threw him over my shoulder and hauled him up to the crest (In a  sense he was my “brother,” and he certainly was not heavy.) Near the top, we dug in as best as we could for the night. That place, that hillside and the valley below it, haunts me still. I’ll explain later.]

[The next day, after a medevac helicopter took out the heat exhausted, and the interpreter, we were ordered to leave rapidly, and Lima was assigned to the point, First Platoon in the lead.]  Lima was leading three other companies. I was point man for the whole shebang—we reached a large draw that looked spooky as hell–a decision was made [I ordered it] that my squad would sprint across the 200 meter draw, climb a hill to the point where we could lay down a base of fire for the rest of the Marines as they ran through the open area. [The trail we were following actually took us through the right edge of a small valley/gully (a couple of hundred yards deep to our left). We had high ground immediately to our right and high ground to the left beyond the little flat space–with no protection if we came under fire. It was perfect ambush territory if we were not paying attention.] Sure enough, as the rest of the column made its way across open ground, the NVA started to direct heavy fire at the crossing Marines. The squad was in a perfect position and we were able to lay it on the NVA and largely suppress the enemy fire. The only problem was we were not able to see the crossing Marines and did not know the last Marine had gotten past the draw. We felt pretty lonely as we ran for a good 20 minutes trying to find the end of the column with virtually all of our ammo expended. [That was on me. I had understood that another squad from the platoon behind us would replace Bud’s as it arrived. I also understood that we would reconnect in short order. Neither happened and the squad was furious with me–can’t say that I blamed it.]

As the operation was drawing to an end, Lima Company had its most glorious  moment of the war [at least as we knew it in 1967 and early 1968].  Second platoon was out on a patrol and was about a kilometer away from the company position.  A resupply helicopter flew over its position. A few hundred yards away, one stupid, stupid NVA shot at the helicopter and gave away the position of some 45 NVA  hunkered down in a perfect ambush position. [I think they were spotted for other reasons, as well.] The rest of Lima company was called up. [Captain Gibbs set up an assault of two platoons on line, First Platoon on the right] I was on the extreme right flank of the company line with a Marine named Patton. We received the word to attack. We did not receive the word that the company was going to run halfway to the enemy position and lay down a base of fire. [Have to admit, I don’t remember such an order being given. My recollection is that it was a nonstop affair.] Patton and i kept running not knowing that we were alone. As we slid into the gully where the enemy were located we almost bumped into two NVA soldiers. Everyone except for me fired at once.  I had the M79 grenade launcher and the round would not detonate from that distance. Without thinking, i rolled on my back,pointed the barrel straight up, gave it a little Kentucky windage, and pulled the trigger. As i watched the round fly skyward it looked like it was going straight up which meant it would be dropping right back on us. It was a long few seconds with my wondering if I was the stupidest Marine on earth. It ended up being a miracle shot. We ran past the two dead NVA and Patton was able to pour fire into the back of the enemy position while the rest of the company rushed into the gully from the front. All of the enemy were killed. Lima Company suffered only one wounded.

After the fighting was over, the resupply helicopter and a major stepped out of the aircraft and asked our skipper if he could shake hands with the two Marines who had so boldly run ahead of all the Marines to confront the enemy. While the major was commending  our actions and shaking our hands neither Patton nor I ventured to explain that we thought everyone else was running  right with us.

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So, Bud—we all—had good reason to feel good about that day, 17 August 1967, that operation, that “present” of a one-sided firefight. We had made a contribution. I didn’t doubt it then either. Hence the smiles on our faces as we returned to our base area in the shadow of Marble Mountain just below Danang.

Eventually, I came to see it and Operation Cochise differently.

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